The deity of American athletics, also known as the NCAA, has decided to lift some of the restrictions on Penn State football:
George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator who is now Penn State’s independent athletics integrity monitor (a position created after the scandal to improve campus sports culture), said that after his first annual review of Penn State’s progress he determined the NCAA should “recognize and reward” the administration’s “good-faith effort” to change.
At Mitchell’s suggestion, the NCAA Executive Committee and the Big Ten Conference agreed to restore the scholarships that were revoked in response to last year’s Freeh Report. The findings of former FBI director Louis J. Freeh detailed the cultural and administrative failings that helped enable Sandusky to use his status as a former coach to rape children for years, sometimes on university property.
Initially, the NCAA said Penn State could award just 65 total football scholarships per year through 2017-18, significantly fewer than the 85 that programs at its level are used to handing out. But now, Penn State will receive an additional five scholarships each year through 2016-17. So essentially, the NCAA returned 20 scholarships it had taken away.
“This action provides an opportunity to recognize Penn State’s significant momentum, while also providing additional opportunities for student-athletes,” said Nathan Hatch, chair of the Division I Board of Directors and president of Wake Forest University.
(Yes, that Nathan Hatch.)
This makes me wonder if that Penn State stays on the course of institutional sanctification, will the NCAA reward Coach Bill O’Brien with W’s from their treasury of victories? They have 111 at their disposal.
Old Life 